Wire-mattress bed-bottom.



L. W. STOGKWELL. WIRE MATTRESS BED BOTTOM.

v APPLIoA'rIoN FILED Nov. 4, 190s.

Patented Aug. 19, 1913.

UNITED sTATEs PATENT oEEicE.

LORA W. STOCKWELL, 0F LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA.

WIRE-MATTRESS BED-BOTTOM.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Aug. 19,1913.

Application filed November 4, 1909. Serial No. 526,258.

which a woven resilient wire mattress fab-y ric is secured to a frameand drawn taut by resilient means a portion of which are diagonallyarranged. The woven wire fabric referred to is made of spring coils spuntogether in a well-known manner commonlyA Aug. 12, 1902, No. 706,970,and consists inV various devices and features of invention whereby thestretching rail shown in said patent is dispensed with and a lighter,tighter and stronger bed bottom is provided. Provision is also madewhereby sagging at the middle of the bed may be insured against and, ifdesired, the bed at the sides of theA medial line of the bed may be moreyielding than the bed at the medial line.

'In devices ofthe kind heretofore known, the side pull or lateraltension is insufficient to properly support the wire fabric over theareas farthest removed from the supports and in attempting to overcomethe difliculty the marginal areas of the fabric have been put underincreased tension which, of course, modifies to an objectionable extentthe re` siliency of the marginal areas.`

An object of this invention is to overcome the foregoing difficulty andthis I do by providing the woven fabric at intervals from side f-to`side with longitudinally extending wires, of which the medial one isstraight from end to end and those on both sides of the medial line aredeflected outward near their ends at angles of substantially thirtydegrees away from the medial wire and all of which are provided withhelical tension springs.

The accompanying drawings illustrate the invention.

Figure 1 is a plan showing the under side `of a bed bottom constructed,in accordance with this invention. Fig. 2 is an enlarged fragmental viewof the top side of the bed bottom shown in Fig. 1.v Only a portion ofthe wire fabric is shown. Fig. 3 is a fragymental sectional view fromline x3, Figs. 1

and 2. Fig. 4 is a fragmental sectional view from line m4, Figs. 1' and2. Fig. 5 is a fragmental sectional view from line m5, Figs. 1 and 2.Fig.6 is a fragmental sectional detail of one of the end bars and clutchbar and anchor portion of the mattress frame just before the clutch baris fastened in place.

The frame of the bed bottom may be of any desired construction and maybe of any desired material. l

In the form shown in the drawings l and 2 designate the side rails, 3end-bars mounted in notches 4 at the ends of the side rails l, 2, andprovided with groovesr that eX- tend centrally along their outer edgesvfrom end to end thereof. The woven resilient fabric a which is formed ofrelatively fine wire woven together in such manner as to make the fabricresilient, is stretched Vover the end-bars and its ends are crimped intothe. grooves 5 by the tongues 6 that extend centrally along the innersides of the clutchbars 7 The clutch-bars are fastened to the end-barsby suitable means as the nails or screws 8. The woven wire fabric is ofcommon construction provided with longitudinal reinforcing spirals 9which may be arranged atas frequent intervals as may be desired.

Extending lengthwise of the bed bottom and along the reinforcingspirals,are a series of relatively coarse bent wires each of which has a body 10extending along inside of a coil practically from end to end of thesuspended woven spring wire fabric and deflecting members 11, 12,practically at the extremities of the fabric body, that extend obliquelyaway from the medial line of the fabricV and are provided at theirextremities with coupling devices as the hooks or eyes 18. Anchor wires14, each provided with an anchor portion 15, are gripped tightly betweenthe end-bars 3 and the clutch-bars, 7, being crimped into the grooves 5by the tongue G. Said anchors are provided at their inner ends withcoupling devices as hooks or eyes 1G and extend obliquely from the endrails 3 toward the medial line of the fabric and practically in linewith the deflecting members 11, 12, of the bent wires. Between theanchors and the deflecting members respectively are arranged helicallsprings 17 made out of relatively heavy spring wire and provided attheir extremities with hooks or eyes 18 engaging` the hooks or eyes 13and 16 of the bent wires of their respective anchors. The anchor wires1li and the coils of the fabric are both supported by the tops Iof theend bars 3; all resting on said tops and all are therefore held inpractically a common horizontal plane, the practical deflection of thedeflecting members and the anchors being laterally and not from thenormal horizontal plane of the fabric. By extending the sliding bodies1() from end to end of the fabric the portion of the fabric whichsupports the occupants of 'the bed is of' practically uniform resilientconstruction throughout from end to end and from side to side, and thetension of the springs 17 is applied in such a manner as to affordcomfortable and uniform support for the person.

To construct the device the anchors 14 are crimped into the grooves 5 inthe cross bars 3 and are fastened by the staples 19; and the wire fabricc is applied over the anchors and crimped into the grooves 5 and mayalso be secured by staples if desired. The clutch bars 7 are thenapplied with. their tongues G in the grooves 5 and thereupon the nails Sor the fastening devices are driven'home, thus jamming the. tongues G onto the fabric and anchors to grip the` same tightly without danger ofsplitting the end rails 3. Then the corners of the rails 3 may be setinto the notches t and stretching mechanism, not shown, applied to drawthe fabric taut. After or before this has been done the stretching wires10 may be threaded into place through the spirals of the fabrics,preferably through the reinforcing` spirals and the same are arranged sothat the deflections 11, 12, of said. wires will extend approximately inline with the anchors lt but with a considerable space between the endsof the wires so that a helical or coil spring 17 may be interposedbetween each anchor and the end of the deflection. The helicals 17 atone end of the fabric may then be connected with the anchors andstretching wires as shown in the drawings and then the helicals at theother end will be separately connected with their stretching wires andby means of a stretching device, not shown, each helical may bestretched until its free end can be caught into the eye of the anchor.

As will be obvious by inspection of the figures the anchor wires 14 areof substantial length and they are reasonably flexible. This feature isvery important and has the following two-fold aspect.

As just explained above, the heavy springs 17 are first connected to thedeflected ends 11 of the longitudinally extending wires 10, and thestretching or tensioning device not shown is gapped across the end rail7 of the frame and across the adjacent end of the spring, for stretchingthe spring toward the anchor wire 111. lllhile under the influence ofthis stretching device the hooks 1S of the `springs could not bemanipulated to any practical extent or with any degree of certainty soas to spring them into a rigid eye. By having wires 14, however, and byhaving them reasonably flexible the spring may be held firmly distendedby the stretching device and the hooks or eyes 16 of the flexibleanchor' may be slipped over the distended spring. The stretching deviceis vthen of course removed and the springs `forcibly draw up on. thewires 10.

The second useful aspect of the anchors 111: resides in the fact thatthey extend out a substantial distance from the end rail so that thesprings are brought much closer to thc point where the wires 10 startthreading through the fabric. This reduces the length of the deflectedends 11. lf the ends 11 were unnecessarily long, they would naturally besomewhat crooked especially in view of the fact that they were threadedthrough ,the fabric,

fand when the stretching device was released rfrom Athe spring 17 someof the tension of the springs would exhaust itself in straightening outthe crooked parts of ends 11. This would be unsatisfactory in that itwould not throw the full spring` tension on to the longitudinal portionof wires 10, as was anticipated, and the retensioning or revivinginfluence of spring 17 would bc noticeably reduced from the expectedamount. This effectis practically eliminated, however, by

the construction shown, because the wires 1-1 can be made sufficientlystraight for the purpose.

It is understood that while the drawings show the helicals provided withhooks at their ends to hook into the eyes on the ends of the wires andanchors, that a reverse construction may employed, placing the hooks onthe anchors and wires, to hook into the eyes on the helicals. It is thusseen that in power required to give a high tension to the wire fabric isindependently applied to each of the coils and said coils can be placedunder a high tension with the application of comparatively little power,and that the fabric on the frame is under tension lengthwise of theframe and that tension crosswise of the frame is effected by stretchinglines the ends of which are deflected toward the edges of the fabric andare held under tension by detachable helicals that are independentlystretchable and fastened to apply the requisite tension.

I claim:-

A rectangular bed bottom comprising a frame, a woven resilient fabricfastened to said frame, a continuous series of spaced longitudinallyextending wires threaded through said fabric for a portion of theirlength, both ends of each longitudinally eX- tending wire beingdeflected toward the adjacent lateral side of the bed bottom, separateanchor wires of substantial length anchored to said frame and extendingtoward and substantially in line with said deflected ends of thecorresponding longitudinally eX- tending wires, and tension springsconnected between the aforesaid deflected ends and the anchor wires.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand at Los Angeles,California, this 29th day of October, 1909.

LORA W. STOCKWELL.

JAMES R. TowNsEND, L. BELLE RICE.

Copies of this patent may be obtained for five cents each, by addressingthe Commissioner of Patents.

Washington, D. C.

